Our website uses cookies to improve your user experience. If you continue browsing, we assume that you consent to our use of cookies. More information can be found in our Cookies Policy and Privacy Policy.

Vince Cable pushes for boardroom ban for ex-HBOS chiefs

Business secretary Vince Cable has asked officials to investigate whether three former HBOS directors could be banned from working as company directors as it emerges Sir James Crosby has a pension pot of over £20m from the collapsed bank.

The Sunday Times reports Cable has told the investigations and enforcement branch of the Insolvency Service to see if there is enough evidence to start disqualification proceedings against former HBOS chairman Lord Stevenson, and former chief executives Crosby and Andy Hornby.

It follows a damning report from the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards last week into the collapse of 2008, and which called for the three executives to be banned from working in financial services.

Crosby stepped down from his role at private equity firm Bridgepoint in the wake of the report, but remains a director of the caterer Compass.

The Sunday Times reports Cable describing the intervention to ask officials to look into the conduct of the former HBOS directors as the “first step” in a process which could see them banned as company directors for life.

Cable told the newspaper: “There are things I am able to do. It is quite a legalistic process. I can ask [officials] to look at whether the companies investigations branch take action. We do have this power that I have begun to initiate.”

The paper also reports that Crosby is sitting on a retirement fund of over £20m from his time as HBOS, entitling him to an annual income of £700,000.

Meanwhile Hornby is in line for a possible share windfall of more than £50m from the bookmaker Coral, his current employer.

Some MPs have called for Crosby and Stevenson to be stripped of their titles, as was the case with former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Fred Goodwin.

Newsletter

Latest from Money Marketing

You have to do hard things to be successful in life. The things no one else does. Why? Life coaches will tell you those are the things that define you; the things that make the difference between existing and living. This may well be true but if that does not float your boat, then American […]

Only a quarter of women are shopping around for their retirement income, according to national IFA LEBC. Customers of LEBC pension advice business The Retirement Adviser are far more likely to use its whole of market service to find the best retirement income solution if they are male. LEBC says the proportion of women using […]

A weekly account of the curious goings-on in the world of financial services A game of Brexit MonopolyLast week, in a foreign policy speech, Theresa May said Brexit negotiations were in their “endgame”. WSJ thinks this is highly unlikely, having heard that not even a quarter of European law has been rolled over yet. Wingate […]

19th November 20182:58 pm

Comments

There are 5 comments at the moment, we would love to hear your opinion too.

But why stop there ? Want about the senior management at the FSA ? Sants, Cole etc etc etc or how about the director of FCA Griffiths-Jones who at the time was chairman of KPMG HBOS auditers.

They are all guilty !! all these people want to do is secure the next top job and to hell with the rest of the world all this incest and inbreeding is just not healthy ? regulator to bank to auditor and back again sounds like a Tolkin book !!!

I am reminded of a statement, I think by by Prof Jim Gower around 1988 when the Financial Services Act came about, it went something like – “you will never prevent a fool from being parted with his money but our job is to prvent ordinary people being made fools of” We have all been made fools of, and it continues to be the case. It really upsets me when Mr Blair, Brown, Balls, Turner and Co who were elected, in part at least, to supervise the city did not do so. They have got away with it and all at our continued expense. Its not right.

Leave a comment

Why register with Money Marketing ?

Providing trusted insight for professional advisers. Since 1985 Money Marketing has helped promote and analyse the financial adviser community in the UK and continues to be the trusted industry brand for independent insight and advice.